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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoAbbas Dulleh | Associated PressDespite fear of the Ebola virus in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia’s Waterside market remains crowded. Yesterday’s scene was before the president’s announced curfew of 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and the quarantine of a slum where residents attacked an Ebola observation center on Saturday.

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s president declared a curfew late yesterday and ordered security
forces to quarantine a slum that’s home to at least 50,000 people as the western African country
tries to stop the spread of Ebola in its capital.

Meanwhile, Liberian authorities said that three health workers who received an experimental drug
for the disease are showing signs of recovery, although medical experts caution that it is not
certain that the drug is effective.

At least 1,229 people have died of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria in the
current outbreak, and more than 2,240 have been sickened, according to the World Health
Organization. The fastest-rising number of reported cases has been in Liberia, where at least 466
are dead.

Authorities in Liberia have struggled to treat and isolate the sick, in part because of
widespread fear that treatment centers are places where people go to die.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced late yesterday that a curfew is going into
place from 9 p.m. to

6 a.m. Security forces also are to ensure that no one goes into or out of West Point, a slum in
the capital where angry residents attacked an Ebola observation center on Saturday.

“We have been unable to control the spread due to continued denials, cultural burying practices,
disregard for the advice of health workers and disrespect for the warnings by the government,” she
said. “As a result and due to the large population concentration, the disease has spread widely in
Monrovia and environs.”

Saturday’s attack on the observation center in West Point was triggered by fears that people
with the disease were being brought there from all over the country, the Information Ministry said
yesterday. Dozens of people waiting to be screened for Ebola fled the center during the chaos.
Looters made off with items, including bloody sheets and mattresses that could spread the
virus.

All the patients who fled are now being screened at a hospital in Monrovia, and those who tested
positive are being treated, the ministry said.

It was unclear how many of the 37 who fled were confirmed with Ebola.

Liberian authorities also are searching for a pastor who ran away from a different Ebola
treatment center outside Monrovia.

State radio asked the public to look out for the preacher but did not say whether he had tested
positive for Ebola.

Three Liberians are being treated with the last known doses of ZMapp, a drug that had earlier
been given to two infected Americans and a Spaniard. The Americans also are improving, but the
Spaniard died.

ZMapp had never been tested in humans. Even if it is effective, its California-based maker has
said more supplies won’t be available for months.

The WHO said it is seeing encouraging signs in other parts of western Africa. In Guinea, where
the outbreak began, people from villages that had previously rejected outside help were beginning
to seek medical care, according to a WHO statement. The statement said the situation is “less
alarming” in Guinea than in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The WHO also said there is “cautious optimism” that the spread of the virus in Nigeria can be
stopped. Late yesterday, health authorities there announced a fifth Ebola death — a doctor who had
treated a man who flew to Nigeria from Liberia while infected. All recorded cases in Nigeria have
been linked to that man.

To try to stem the spread of Ebola, officials have imposed quarantines and travel restrictions
on the sick and those in contact with them, sometimes shutting off villages and counties.

Those restrictions are limiting access to food and other necessities, the WHO said. The U.N.
World Food Program has said it is preparing to deliver food to 1 million people over the next three
months.